


and tell them you remember

by OfShoesAndShips



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Gen, The People's Revolution of the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-01 05:29:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4007653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfShoesAndShips/pseuds/OfShoesAndShips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just because you weren't there, precisely, doesn't mean you don't remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Ponder toyed with one of the lilacs that nodded at him from behind the bench that one of the students had installed a few months ago; already there were messages and little drawings carved into the wood, and Ponder smiled gently. In his day, there was just the desk to carve things into. But now a few particularly devoted students had turned the small patch of scrub behind the HEM building into what they were calling a ‘peace garden’, complete with decorated benches, a small pool in which strange things swam, and enough flowers to make anyone happy. Including the lilac. 

 

There was a soft cough from behind him and his hand fell from the flower with a quick flash of guilt. 

 

“Unusual to see you out,” he said.

 

“I could say the same of you,” Rincewind said, and Ponder shrugged.

 

“I have exam papers to mark.”

 

“Ah.”

 

“It was one of yours that had the idea, wasn’t it? For the garden, I mean.” 

 

“He thought it would brighten up the place. He tells me he’s going to travel during the summer and bring back some seed samples. I have the condolences letter all ready and waiting”   
  


Ponder turned and frowned, taking his glasses off and polishing them on his sleeve. “Sorry?”

 

“He wants to find a sapient pearwood seedling for in the corner.”

 

“Oh, yes, I see. Poor boy.”

 

“I tried to dissuade him, but then he never listened that closely in lectures anyway.”  

 

The corner of Ponder’s mouth twitched in something approaching a smile. 

 

Rincewind’s gaze flicked past him to the lilac, and something in his eyes went cold. “Oh,” he said, so softly that Ponder barely heard him.

 

“Do you-;” Rincewind’s voice cracked and he coughed to try and hide it, “Do you still have some of the Librarian’s vodka, by any chance?”

 

-

 

Hex hummed and clattered behind them, but it had been doing that for so long now that they hardly noticed. Rincewind had kicked his shoes off and folded his legs up on one of Ponder’s chairs, his elbows on his knees, rolling the glass between his hands. Ponder was resting his on the arm of his chair, his legs stretched out so far that his socked toes caught on the leather of Rincewind’s discarded shoes.

 

“You were there, then?” Ponder asked, in an undertone.

 

“Well. In a manner of speaking.”

 

Ponder mmm-ed and Rincewind’s eyes snapped up. “Aren’t you a bit young?”

 

Ponder shrugged. “I still remember it, just about. It sticks to you, I suppose. Even if you weren’t really  there .”

 

Rincewind knocked back the last of his vodka and poured himself another.

 

“Was that the, er, the first appearance of the half-brick in a sock?”

 

Rincewind laughed, but it was bitter, not amused. “I-;” he stopped.

 

“What?”

 

“I’d never called myself a coward until that day.”


	2. Chapter 2

The room was smaller than he remembered, the walls leaning in drunkenly, the window smeared with grease and half-blacked by the smog. His bedstead was more rickety, and the mattress seemed to squirm a little if you squinted. More floorboards squeaked. More shadows lingered in the corners, thick, black, unctuous. Rincewind set his suitcase at the foot of his bed and put the candle down on the desk, the tin holder clinking against the nails that held the desk together loosely. The flame flickered in the odd gusts of wind that came in through the gap between wall and window-frame, but held on, making odd patterns on the walls.

 

The stairs behind him creaked and he jumped, turning around. His grandfather stood in the doorframe, filling it almost completely; he stooped forward, always had, the low ceilings making it impossible for him to straighten fully.  

 

“You got back alright, then,” he said, and his voice was damp, struggling out of his lungs like a rat out of the Ankh.

 

Rincewind nodded.

 

“No-one give you any trouble?”

 

Rincewind shook his head. The journey back to the Shades from the UU had been easy enough; that, too, was different. It used to be that a day he came back with all his bones intact was rare enough to fuel the gossip mills for a week - but now there was a watchfulness, a hush, across the streets. In later years he would think of it as the calm before the storm, the lull, the false sense of security before all hell came down on your head; but then, it felt like respite. Like a deep breath of promisingly clean air.

 

His grandfather gave him a rheumy look. “You’ll be in demand now, lad,” he said, “A student and everything. Smart, like. Suze were asking if you’d mind watching the shop for her again, and I says to her, I says he’s a student at the University now, he’s bound for bigger things, so she says she’d pay you a few dollars more if you’d look at her accounts, make ‘em all line up all neat-;” he coughed, hard, almost falling into the doorframe, “I said you’d be down this week, see what you can do.”

 

“I can try.” Suze’s figures hadn’t lined up since before Rincewind was born, but he was used to creative economics by now. He was a student, after all.

 

“There’s a good lad. Della from downstairs - I sent you a letter ‘bout her, remember?”

 

“I remember.”

 

“She’s bringing us up a casserole. Good woman, that Della. Says her w’s all strange, but them Uberwaldian folks are all a bit off. She’s harmless enough.” He was smiling while he spoke, and that was new, too.

 

“I’ll be down in a minute,” Rincewind said, and his grandfather nodded.   
  
“Right you are. Get yourself settled and all that.” he shuffled back down the stairs, creaking almost as much as the stairs. Rincewind took a deep, shaky breath, and began to unpack.

 

-

 

His grandfather’s bed had been moved closer to the range, the kitchen table moved to near the door, three chairs cramped in around it. A low fire burned in the range despite the time of year, and the sash window, opened a crack, let in a little fresh air. But the atmosphere was still too heavy, too stuffy; it was a warm May anyway, and the bricks of the building clung to the heat. Rincewind could feel beads of sweat gathering at the small of his back and sat as far from the smouldering range as he could. He drummed his foot against the floor, fighting against the urge to run back upstairs; it was only a matter of time before the usual question came around again and he couldn’t lie to his grandfather’s face as easily as he could lie on paper.

 

_How’re your studies going, lad?_

 

They’re not, he thought, and winced. What was he supposed to do? Admit he was slowly failing? That no matter how hard he tried the practical work just...didn’t work? That he was petrified, every single day, that this would be the day his professors finally noticed him, called him up in front of the whole class like they had at the Bennets’ school down the street. But he was just as petrified that one day the money would run out, that he’d be called back home again. He blinked rapidly and breathed out, just as the stairs began to groan under his grandfather’s slow footsteps. The door opened just as a woman’s laughter rang out, and Rincewind looked up to see a tiny, pink-cheeked woman step into the kitchen. Thin white streaks ran through her brown hair, pinned up in a puffy bun, her eyes and smile wide. She beamed impossibly wider when she saw him sitting there and bustled over to him, pressing her small, liver-spotted hands to his.

 

“You must be Vill’s boy!” she cried, her accent a strange mixture of Shades and Lower Uberwald, “John’s told me so much about you! John! John! You did not tell me he was such a skinny boy! Do zey not feed you at this university of yours? Oh, no, I’m being rude, do forgive me, I am Della.” She finally stopped for breath, still smiling, and Rincewind smiled hesitantly back.

 

“It’s very nice to meet you,” he said, and Della squeezed his hand.

 

“So polite! Isn’t he, John?”

 

Rincewind’s grandfather put the dish he was carrying down on the table and smiled tiredly. “He’s a good lad, he is. Volunteered to help Suze at her shop, he did. Can never do enough for you, honestly. Takes after his da. Lovely lad, was Will,” Not this again, thought Rincewind, “It’s just a pity that girl led ‘im astray. Sends back a little money every few months, but I ‘aven’t seen hair nor hide of him for years-;” he broke into coughing and Della ran over to him, her apron billowing above the rippling hem of her dress.   


“Sit down, John! You know the doctor told you to rest, all these stairs are no good for you - sit down, sit down, I vill get you some vater-;”

 

“I’m fine, Della, don’t fuss-;”

 

“I vill fuss all I like, John Rincevind! Sit!”

 

He sat, easing himself slowly into the chair closest to the range. He was shaking ever so slightly, his face pallid and shiny with sweat, and Rincewind was suddenly struck by how fragile he seemed, even though he was just as large a man as he’d always been.

 

“Grandfather-;”

 

“I said I’m fine, lad, it’s just a cough is all.”

 

“It’s zis damp air, I say,” Della muttered as she scooped a cup of water from the pail on the counter, “It does ze lungs no good,” She put the cup on the table and glared at his grandfather until he picked it up and drank, “Zere you go.”

 

She flashed Rincewind a quick, crinkly smile and he smiled back, a little stronger than before.

 

“Now, how about that cazzerole before it goes cold?”

 

-

 

They were half way through when the dreaded question came. John leant forward in his chair,  elbows on the table, a little sauce around the corner of his mouth - Della had noticed, and was attempting to stifle a smile - and came straight out and asked it.

 

For the shortest of seconds, Rincewind’s eyes widened, his mouth opening on a lie he hadn’t yet invented-;

 

“John! Ze poor boy is barely home and already you interrogate him! Let him settle first.”

 

John blinked, and then turned his head a little to look at her. “I’m only, what was the phrase? ‘Taking an interest’.”

 

“I know, but-;”

 

“I’m quite tired,” Rincewind said to his casserole.

 

“See?”

 

John’s eyes flicked between them, and then he nodded, picking up his spoon again. “Fair enough, lad,” he murmured, roughly, “But you’ve barely said anything in your letters lately, I’m only,” he paused, and Della reached over, giving his hand a gentle squeeze, “I’m just worried, is all.”

 

Rincewind chewed his lip and looked up to give him an uneasy smile. “I’m fine,” he said, and John grinned.

 

“You always are, lad.”


End file.
